t of the cabinet was just as heartrending: three were to go to the
thirty Peelites, and one to the two hundred and seventy just persons. 'I
am afraid,' cried Lord John, 'that the liberal party will never stand
this, and that the storm will overwhelm me.' Whig pride was deeply
revolted at subjection to a prime minister whom in their drawing-rooms
they mocked as an old tory. In the Aberdeen cabinet, says Mr. Gladstone,
'it may be thought that the whigs, whose party was to supply five-sixths
or seven-eighths of our supporters, had less than their due share of
power. It should, however, be borne in mind that they had at this
juncture in some degree the character of an used up, and so far a
discredited, party. Without doubt they were sufferers from their
ill-conceived and mischievous Ecclesiastical Titles Act. Whereas we,
the Peelites had been for six and a half years out of office, and had
upon us the gloss of freshness.'

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Lord Palmerston refused to join the coalition, on the honourable ground
that for many years he and Aberdeen had stood at the antipodes to one
another in the momentous department of foreign affairs. In fact he
looked in another direction. If the Aberdeen-Russell coalition broke
down, either before they began the journey or very soon after, Lord
Derby might come back with a reconstructed team, with Palmerston leading
in the Commons a centre party that should include the Peelites. He was
believed to have something of this kind in view when he consented to
move the amendment brought to him by Gladstone and Herbert in November,
and he was bitterly disappointed at the new alliance of that eminent
pair with Lord John. With the tories he was on excellent terms. Pall
Mall was alive with tales of the anger and disgust of the Derbyites
against Mr. Disraeli, who had caused them first to throw over their
principles and then to lose their places. The county constituencies and
many conservative boroughs were truly reported to be sick of the man who
had promised marvels as 'looming in the future,' and then like a bad
jockey had brought the horse upon its knees. Speculative minds cannot
but be tempted to muse upon the difference that the supersession by Lord
Palmerston of this extraordinary genius at that moment might have made,
both to the career of Disraeli himself, and to the nation of which he
one day became for a space the supreme ruler. Cobden and Bright let it
be u